There are a wide variety of services available on the internet, such as the services on the QQ platform provided by Tencent Technology. Whenever a new version of service is released, a large number of users will be affected. Thus, the network service providers typically release new service in stages (also called gradual conversion), wherein the new service is first released to a small number of users, while the remaining users continue to use the old service; if it is proven that there is no issue for the new service as used by the small number of users, the remaining users will be gradually migrated to the new service.
There are two methods of releasing new service in stages.
In the first method, the new service is released in stages one server a time.
In the second method, all the users are divided into a number of units, and the new service is released in stages one user unit a time.
In the first method, as each server may handle large number of user accesses, there is still substantial risk in releasing the new service.
In the second method, if the number of user units is small, the risk is not well controlled; if the number of user units is large, it is not very efficient as it may take a substantial amount of time to release the new service to all users.
Thus, there is a need to provide a method and apparatus for releasing services on a server in stages of low risk and high efficiency to address the issues in the prior art.